4/20/15

THE BAD NEWS BEARS & 5 MORE MOVIES THAT ARE SECRETLY ABOUT VIETNAM

I wrote a piece at IFC.com, originally titled "Holy shit, six movies I hadn't realized are totally about VIETNAM." They changed the title, but it's still pretty good. You can read it here. It's "smart", in a Cracked.com sort of way.

Interestingly (well, interesting to no one but me) -- my college thesis was about Vietnam in popular memory, so this essay was a return to that. I barely graduated college because of my non-traditional thesis-lecture-show. So writing this essay about Vietnam movies felt very Rambo; but instead of returning to Vietnam I was going back to the treacherous landscape of media studies. "Do I get to win this time?"

Lastly: I would make a case that GHOSTBUSTERS is about Reagan not dealing with the ghosts of Viet Nam. But I don't want to risk "ruining" someone's childhood with that theory.

RELATED:

My STAR WARS personal essay. (Don't worry, I don't argue that STAR WARS is the first pro-war film since John Wayne's THE GREEN BERETS.)